


I'm in the Corner (Why Can't You See Me?)

by LovesFrogs



Series: Unrelated Irondad Drabbles [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, BAMF Pepper Potts, Big Brother Peter Parker, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Ghost Peter Parker, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Pedophilia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Infinity Stones, Kinda, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Rape/Non-con Elements, Temporary Character Death, This hurts me, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, it will get better, the implied rape is not done to Peter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 09:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20504495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovesFrogs/pseuds/LovesFrogs
Summary: Peter gets sucked into the soul stone before the battle ends, and later he manages to escape. Now he just has to figure out what to do with himself. Wandering around as an invisible ghost isn't all it's cracked up to be.





	1. Blipped and Unblipped

**Author's Note:**

> So... college is starting. Who knows how much time I'll have this year. But have a fic! It comes from this quote from _when my body won't hold me anymore (where will I go)_ by madasthesea:  
“If I am a ghost, I’m gonna be the nicest ghost ever,” [Peter] tells Tony. “I’ll wash your favorite mug for you. And put a blanket over you when you fall asleep in the lab. And I’ll turn the oven off before May burns the food.”

They had been fighting with everything they had. Peter was totally _not_ freaking out about being on an alien planet as he swung from rock formation to rock formation, dodging Thanos’ attacks and pulling as many alien guys as possible out of the line of fire. Tony went toe-to-toe with the villain with the help of Dr. Strange, and Peter was doing his very best to be helpful without getting in the way. Even though Tony had unofficially appointed him to the Avengers earlier, Peter knew that this was way out of his league.

“I’ve got your back,” he called to the large, muscled alien, who was fending off a swarm of rock monsters that Thanos had brought to life.

“No, I have my back. You have nothing but strange strings and very tight armor.”

“I meant,” said Peter, as he punched through the head of a rock monster, “that I would help you.”

“I do not need help,” the alien said. And actually, he was doing a pretty good job on his own. Peter paused for a second, watching as the alien used a sturdy-looking knife to take a monster apart. He shook his head and took off toward the girl alien.

“I see,” Thanos’ voice carried across the battlefield. “I can bring you to your knees in a moment, Stark.”

Peter’s whole body erupted in goosebumps. He felt such a strong sense of foreboding that he stopped in his tracks for a second. Thanos was staring right at him. Peter saw, as if in slow motion, the way Tony followed the titan’s gaze. They made eye contact across the battlefield, and all the other noise dropped away for just a second.

“No,” Tony mouthed. Peter had never seen that look in his eyes before.

“NO!” Tony shouted again as Thanos pointed the gauntlet at Peter and shot out an orange beam of light. Peter tried to dodge, but the light _followed him_ like a heat-seeking missile until it found its target.

For a moment, or maybe a year, time didn’t exist. Peter might have screamed. He might have writhed and struggled as the orange enveloped him. He might have called out for someone to save him. He tried not to think about how May would react, but he failed. He didn’t want to imagine her at his funeral, an empty casket lowering into the ground while she sobbed beside it. She would wear the same black dress she’d worn to Ben’s funeral years before, and to his parents’ years before that. He didn’t want to know if Happy would be there, gruffly comforting his Aunt. He didn’t want Ned to lose him, or to have to move on and get a new best friend. He wanted to tell MJ that he might maybe have a tiny crush on her, and watch her laugh in response. He wanted to invent with Tony and burn dinner with May and build Lego and get into MIT next year and get hired by Stark Industries and maybe get married and have kids one day in the vague, happy place that was the future.

Tony screamed. Peter’s heart cried.

Everything went black.

<strike>\----------------------------------</strike>

Peter rose to consciousness slowly. His brain swam up through layers and layers of fog until he finally broke through the surface. He scrunched up his face and stretched, blinking until the world came into focus.

That was when he remembered everything: the fight, the attack, Tony’s screams…

And now Peter was lying on the ground in an orange world. He could see nothing but orange sky and flat orange ground and a few pillars ahead of him. Lounging on the stone steps beneath them was a woman with green skin and long black hair. She was fingering a double-sided dagger and staring into the distance.

Peter stumbled to his feet. “Hello? Um… Miss? Please don’t stab me with that knife, it looks super dangerous and, uh, intimidating, but where are we? Who are you? Can you help me? I have to get back to Mr. Stark and my friends, they were fighting Thanos and…”

He trailed off. The woman hadn’t moved or acknowledged him at all. She simply sat and fluidly flipped the dagger around and around in her hands like a thought she was turning over in her head. Peter cautiously moved closer, ready to run at any moment if she attacked. “Hello?”

“There is no escape from this place,” she said, still looking out into the distance. “There is nowhere to go. We’re trapped in the soul stone.”

“The what?”

Finally, she turned to face him. Her eyes were so piercing that Peter almost wished she’d look away again. “The soul stone. It’s one of the six infinity stones, which control the universe when brought together. The only thing that might possibly get us out of here is if someone else controls the soul stone, or several of the others.”

Peter slowly settled down next to her. She didn’t kill him, so he figured it was fine. “How did you get in here then?”

She smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “Thanos adopted me when I was a child. I have been fighting against him for years, but he managed to catch me using the reality stone. In order to get the soul stone he had to trade a soul that he loved. I think I was the only one who could have worked.”

Peter nodded slowly. The woman gave him chills, but she didn’t seem particularly malicious. “What’s your name?”

“I am Gamora.”

“I’m Peter Parker. Nice to meet you, Ms. Gamora.” He cracked a grin, as scared and confused as he was. “Does this make us soulmates?”

Gamora looked at him, expressionless, for a long time. Peter withdrew his hand and his smile dropped. “I mean, uh, it’s a joke because on earth…”

A tiny smile quirked over Gamora’s lips. “Yes,” she said. “It is nice to meet you, too, Peter Parker.”

They sat together for some time. Peter wasn’t sure how long it was, but he wished he had some music or something to do. He was getting antsy and he wanted to know if the team had managed to defeat Thanos. Gamora seemed perfectly content just fingering her dagger, and Peter was a little too nervous around that to break the silence again. Instead he sat and looked around. The ground was like one giant puddle, with water a few inches deep as far as the eye could see. It reflected the orange sky above, which had lighter and darker spots as if he and Gamora were actually sealed inside a giant crystal. It was peaceful, though incredibly boring and terrifying if he thought about it for too long.

Suddenly, Peter’s breath hitched and he felt the impact like a punch to the gut. He leapt to his feat. Something was coming. Gamora spared him a glance, but she didn’t seem to think anything was wrong. Her dagger continued to spin end over end between her slim fingers. Peter took one step forward, and then another. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and his heart began to beat faster. It sounded louder than normal in the silent space, and he wondered if Gamora could hear it.

There was a loud snapping sound that seemed to shake the ground, and Gamora stirred as Peter whirled around, searching. He didn’t have to look far. Giant holes ripped into the air like millions of Dr. Strange’s portals. The edges glittered with all the colors of the rainbow as the portals expanded, hundreds and thousands of them, each one dropping someone new into the world. Peter saw people and aliens alike in all colors and sizes, from fat and knee-high to huge and bearded. There were colors he’d never thought about for skin and tentacles in weird places. He shouted as someone almost landed on top of him, and gasped a second later when he realized that the alien girl from before was lying there on the ground. Nearby, the rest of their team landed as well, and Gamora ran to them.

“Peter,” she said, but she wasn’t talking to him. 

“Gamora?” Star Lord blinked slowly. “Gamora! You were dead!”

“No. But now we’re all trapped.”

Peter felt a little tingle every time a new portal opened, and a sudden idea occurred to him. This was not how he’d entered, he was pretty sure. These things must be caused by all the stones together, which Gamora seemed to think would be strong enough to overpower the soul stone by itself.

“Please,” he whispered, and the next time he felt a tingle he flung himself to the left, directly into a newly opening portal.

His vision went white. Peter screamed. It felt like his whole body was tearing apart and rearranging for just a second before the pain disappeared and he was floating. He heard no sound, but there was a question all the same.

“I just want to see that they’re okay,” he said. “I can’t leave them.”

He didn’t know if that was the right answer, but it was the true one. 

He remained floating in the nothingness for a second longer before being plunged back into chaos and color and whirling winds tearing at him from every direction. He closed his eyes and braced himself, holding on for dear life until the wind was gone and all that remained was stillness. 

Someone was crying.

Peter inched one eyelid open, then let both widen as he looked around at the planet he had been taken from. It was empty now, except for several swirling piles of dust. He began to pick his way through the rubble to the crying sound.

“Mr. Stark!” he called, when he saw the dark, shaking form. “Mr. Stark, what happened? I’m back, it’s okay. Where did Thanos go?”

The man didn’t answer. He was staring at a particular pile of dust as if it had killed his puppy.

“Mr. Stark?”

“Peter,” Tony said. 

“Yes, I’m here! What happened?” said Peter. But Tony kept talking as if he couldn't hear him at all.

“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I--I-- everything I touch, it just--” he broke off in what might have been a sob from any other man. Peter’s heart sank.

“Mr. Stark, this is so, 100% not your fault.” He tried to touch him, but though Tony felt solid beneath his hand, the man didn’t acknowledge Peter’s presence. Peter was getting a terrible idea of where this was going.

“Seriously,” Peter said when it became clear that Tony had no more words. “Do not beat yourself up for this. It is all Thanos’ fault, and I’m assuming he won based on the fact that you’re alone and injured here and all those people were entering the soul stone when I escaped.” He rested his hands on Tony’s shoulders and wished he’d had the courage to do something like this when he knew Tony would feel it. 

“Stark! We have to get out of here.” Peter whipped around at the sound of a woman’s voice, though Tony barely twitched. She was a bright cobalt blue, with mechanical parts apparently attached to her body. The weapons she carried screamed _dangerous!_ but Peter sort of remembered her from the battle before. He didn’t think she would hurt Tony.

“You should go with her, Mr. Stark,” he said. “She looks like she means business, and trust me, if May ever looked at me like that I would get off my butt, and fast, or I would be facing imminent death.”

Tony didn’t respond.

Peter hovered worriedly as the blue lady heaved Tony to his feet and dragged him into a beat up spaceship. He grabbed Tony’s arm and held on when they took off, and talked at Tony whenever he could muster up something to say. Even if Tony couldn’t hear him, Peter hoped some of his feelings would get through. The man was still trembling.

They ran out of food after a few days. The blue lady, apparently Nebula, gave Tony the last of it. 

“Thank you,” Peter told her. “He won’t admit it, but he’s not doing great.” Nebula simply watched Tony with huge black eyes as he choked down the dry space food. Peter wondered what she was thinking. She and Tony had said very little to each other outside of fixing up the ship.

Tony’s messages in the Iron Man helmet nearly broke Peter’s heart. Tony couldn’t die, not like this!

“Pep, if I don’t make it back, you gotta let May Parker know that her nephew is gone.”

“I’m not gone,” said Peter, offended. “It’s not my fault you can’t see me, Mr. Stark, maybe you should go get your eyes checked instead of blaming me.”

But Peter’s indignation switched quickly to worry when the oxygen began to run out and Tony seemed to lose all energy. It just didn’t seem like the Mr. Stark he knew when he limply laid on the ground and closed his eyes as if he never expected to open them. Nebula silently picked him up and set him in a captain’s chair. As soon as she turned around Peter hopped over to Tony and settled himself on his lap.

Tony was warm. His breath tickled Peter’s face. Peter wished with all his might that Tony’s arms would wrap around him and just give him one real hug unimpeded by embarrassment or fear of death, but Tony stayed limp in the chair, heart slowing.

Peter might have cried when Captain Marvel showed up to get them back home. He definitely cried when Tony hugged Pepper.

“I lost the kid,” Tony told her and Colonel Rhodes.

“You did not!” Peter jumped up on Tony’s shoulders for a ride. “Why do you keep saying that? I’m not lost and it’s not your fault.”

But Tony was slumped over like the invisible weight of the world was on his shoulders instead of just the invisible ghost of Spider-Man. “I’m really not that heavy,” Peter said, but he got off anyway. No need to weigh Tony down anymore than he already was.

He didn’t really understand all the beef that Tony and Captain America clearly had to work out, but he stuck by Tony and tried to catch him when he fell. Luckily, Colonel Rhodes was there to help too.

“You need to heal first,” Peter berated the unconscious man. “You can fight with Captain America any old day of the year, but now you have to get better so you can fix all this.”

Tony didn’t even twitch.

Pepper was there with them when Tony woke up again a few hours later.

“You’re here,” Tony whispered.

“Yes,” she said. Her voice was wet but strong. “Tony, I saw your messages.”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” She cleared her throat. “You should know that May Parker is gone. There’s no one else to tell.”

Peter gasped. “Aunt May was disappeared too?” What was he supposed to do? He’d wanted to stay with both of them, but Tony was here and May was there and Peter didn’t know how he could do anything anyway when he was just a ghost. He didn’t even know how he’d gotten here.

Tony’s eyes were empty. “Pep… Pepper, what now? There’s nothing.”

Their eyes met and Peter felt like he should leave the room, but he also wanted to know what she was going to say. There was no one else to go to, but… “There’s never nothing,” he said. “Please don’t let him think like that.”

Pepper shook her head. “You are going to gain weight and shave and shower, but not in that order. Then we are going to go home. We are going to find a nice place away from the city and you are going to help me decorate a room and paint it yellow and learn to do your own actual vacuuming…” she broke off, and Peter watched a few tears fall down the face of the iron Pepper Potts. It was historic, but all he felt was sad and confused. “You are going to pull it together, Tony, because I’m pregnant.”

There was precisely one second of silence.

“What?” Peter whooped in delight. “A baby! Mr. Stark, you’re going to be a great dad! This is awesome, can I be the big brother? I can teach them to dumpster dive and do a backflip and make them plebeian food like grilled cheese sandwiches!”

Tony was staring at Pepper with almost no expression on his face. “You’re… what?”

“I’m going to have a baby, Tony,” she said with a sad little smile. “I think we should name it Morgan, after my crazy uncle. What do you think?”

Tony seemed to be stuck processing. 

“Tony?” she took his hand.

“Yes!” said Tony suddenly. “Yes, that, that’s great, Pep. But can I… I think I need some serious therapy before… everything.”

“Well it must be bad if you’re admitting it,” she said. But her smile grew. For the first time since the alien planet, Tony had a smile on his face.

Tony and Peter stayed in the medbay for days. The Avengers left, and returned with the news that Thanos was dead, but the stones were already gone. The titan had gotten rid of them before the Avengers arrived. Peter felt a stab of grief and fear for the people trapped inside: Gamora, half the Avengers, Aunt May. But he could do nothing but cry and hold onto Tony for all he was worth. They couldn’t be gone now… right?

He tried not to think about it. Instead, he badgered Tony with ideas for the baby. But though Peter talked and talked, he’d never seen Tony so silent and still. 

Peter didn’t like that one bit.


	2. To the Boy I've Loved Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has too much time on his hands. Tony does some assignments from therapy.

Tony and Pepper moved straight from the med bay to an adorable wooden cottage beside a lake. The scene was picturesque and calm, and Peter could almost forget the tragedy that had happened when there was no one around. Tony paid copious amounts of money to hire a therapist, as therapy was currently a very hot commodity. Peter left those appointments alone, not wanting to break Tony’s privacy. He stayed with Pepper at the house and watched her do paperwork and tested the limits of what he could do instead.

“Ms. Potts, can you believe this? I can’t walk on walls when I’m a ghost! This is so sad, FRIDAY play Despacito.”

Pepper turned the page of whatever paperwork she was going through. 

Peter wandered down to Tony’s lab. He saw several dirty coffee mugs on the workbench, including Tony’s favorite one from Colonel Rhodes. It read:

_Normal people have ideas.   
Engineers build them.  
MIT_

There was still about half an inch of cold coffee in it, and Peter sighed and picked it up. Then he froze.

“How come I can move you?” he asked the mug. “I couldn’t move anything in the room upstairs when Pepper was… when Pepper was there.” Was it possible that he could move and use inanimate objects when no one was there?

First order of business: Peter washed the mug. There was a sink and dish soap available, and he set the newly cleaned mug beside the sink where Tony would be sure to find it. Then, heart racing, he sped upstairs again. Pepper had barely moved.

Peter tried to move a pillow next to her. It felt like it was suddenly as heavy as Thor’s hammer. Peter couldn’t even sway the tassels on the corners. Frowning, he went back downstairs. He moved a screwdriver two inches to the left, pulled up a hologram Tony had been staring at for several minutes, and flipped around a couple of variables so that it made sense.

A new thought occurred to him, so he grabbed a pen and wandered around the house until he found some form of paper. There was a pad of sticky notes in the kitchen. Perfect.

“Hi, Mr. Stark. This is Peter. Um…” Peter tapped the pen against his chin, racking his brain for some way to explain the situation. Before he could write any more, though, Pepper walked into the room and the pen clattered right through his fingers. Pepper turned suspiciously. Nothing must have seemed amiss though, and she slowly turned back around. Peter breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hey, Ms. Potts, you scared me there! I thought you were busy working.”

She rummaged through the cupboards, coming away with peanut butter and a spoon.

“Oh, that’s a big mood, Ms. Potts. It’s even better if you mix in frosting,” Peter said, trailing after her. She plopped back down, sadness tugging at her mouth and worry wrinkling her forehead. Peter wished he could do something to make it go away.

“Someone is going to kill me for not having a wedding,” she murmured. “But under the circumstances…” she fingered a paper and sighed. Then she unceremoniously unscrewed the peanut butter jar and shoved a huge spoonful in her mouth.

Peter leaned over her shoulder. Pepper was holding a marriage certificate, already finalized and signed by everyone but Tony. The date was for that day.

“Oh,” said Peter softly. “Congratulations, Mrs. Stark! You make him so happy. I hope he comes home from therapy and gives you a huge hug and a kiss and signs that thing right away. And then you two should go out somewhere for your honeymoon, even if it’s just to get out of the house. Have some fun!”

Pepper buried her face in her hands and shook. Peter sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He wouldn’t normally have dared, but, well… it wasn’t like he could get in trouble anyway. They stayed that way for a few minutes before Peter got fidgety. “I’m going to try to get on the internet today,” he said, and walked back down to Tony’s workshop. 

Pepper didn’t notice.

Peter had seen the password to Tony’s computer, so getting on it wasn’t hard. The difficult thing was deciding what to do first. Finally, Peter steeled himself and logged onto his Instagram account. He needed to know. Peter scrolled down through the feed until he found a list Midtown had posted on its official account.

“The disappeared…”

Peter searched and searched. “Ned… and MJ…” Peter couldn’t even cry anymore, he just sat back and felt tired down to his bones. Even Flash was gone! There was literally no one left that Peter could connect with or tell he was here except for the Starks. Not to mention that Peter didn’t want to give people false hope by using his social media after he vanished. He logged back off.

Upstairs, a door slammed. 

“Honey, I’m home!” said Tony. Peter grinned and headed up.

Tony had indeed swept Pepper up in a hug, and he gave her a quick peck on the lips. “How was your day?”

Pepper shrugged. “Oh, just paperwork and business and more paperwork. C’mon, I need you to sign something.”

“You’re the boss.”

“You bet she is,” said Peter. “You’re the most whipped guy I’ve ever seen, Mr. Stark, and I go to high school.”

Pepper handed Tony the certificate. He stared at it, wide eyed, for several long seconds. “Pep…”

“Normally I would make you throw me the best wedding money can buy, but…” She bit her lip. “How do you feel about inviting Rhodes over tomorrow for ice cream and movies? We can snuggle on the couch.”

A huge grin slowly grew on Tony’s face. “You know me so well,” he said, signing with a flourish and kissing Pepper long enough that Peter looked away.

“That’s gross, Mr. Stark.”

Finally they broke apart, still smiling. “I just wish…” Tony trailed off sadly, glancing away.

Pepper took his hand. “Me too. Feel free to go down and tinker your thoughts away in the workshop if you want. I have more to do.”

“You always do,” said Tony, but he stood up. “Will that be all, Mrs. Stark?”

Tony didn’t see it, but Peter couldn’t help but smile at the expression of joy overtaking Pepper’s face. “Yes, that will be all, Mr. Stark.”

Peter followed him down to the workshop, but Tony didn’t open his computer. Instead he rummaged around, pulling open several drawers and cabinets, before he finally found an old spiral notebook and a pen. He still had a giddy smile on his face.

“Wow, Mr. Stark, I didn’t know you had any paper in here. I thought you didn’t believe in such old fashioned stuff,” Peter joked. “What, did you want a paper airplane or something?”

“Dear... Peter…” Tony mumbled as he wrote. “Oh my gosh, therapy is so stupid. I haven’t had a paper assignment since high school.”

“No no, keep going!” said Peter. He wasn’t sure if this was something he should see, but Mr. Stark was clearly going to write to him, and, well… Peter was a curious soul, and he wanted to know. Not to mention he was going to go crazy if no one talked to him for much longer. So Peter decided to read over Tony’s shoulder and silently ask for forgiveness if this wasn’t okay.

Tony groaned. “It’s better to do this in a good mood, right FRI?”

“I couldn’t say, Boss,” she said.

Tony ran a hand through his hair and got to work.

_Dear Peter,_

_Hey, Kid. _

_I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve this. Heck, when I was 17 I was out getting drunk and picking up girls. You were so much better than me. I wish I had some way to save you. <strike>I wish you could’ve</strike>_

_ <strike>I miss</strike> _

_ <strike>Love,</strike> _

_Mr. Stark _

“Oh, Mr. Stark,” Peter breathed. Tony was shaking, and it reminded Peter of the aftermath of the battle, when Tony had trembled for hours. A tear fell on the paper. “I miss you too, Mr. Stark.” Peter wrapped his arms around Tony, something he’d never dared to do in real life after the embarrassing episode in the car right after they met. But really, there was nothing he could do, and that hurt most of all.

“Every week,” Tony said. “I can’t do this every stupid week, Kid.” He sounded resigned.

“Oh my gosh, Mr. Stark, it’s a weekly writing assignment at the length of your choice with the content of your choice. I had worse in fifth grade,” Peter grumbled. But he also tightened his grip, hoping to get though.

Tony didn’t hear him. Eventually he went up to bed, and Peter, with no need to sleep, had free reign of the house. It was his least favorite part of each day. Usually he just sort of drifted and dozed, but today he had something to do. He picked up a pen and stared at the sticky note he’d started, unable to come up with anything to say. Somehow, he thought that writing to Tony might make things worse. He didn’t want to freak him out, and it seemed like Peter was stuck until the infinity stones were found, which he knew for a fact the other Avengers would be working on. Tony just needed to heal.

Peter threw the note away. What else could he do? The dishes in the sink caught his eye. No one had bothered to wash them for the last few days, and the pans were slowly building up. Peter shrugged, and filled the sink with soap and warm water. He couldn’t play music, but Peter sang out loud to himself as he washed the dishes and put them all away in the correct cupboards.

If he was going to haunt the Starks, he was going to be the nicest ghost ever.

<strike>\----------------------------------</strike>

The days slid by, and Peter got bored. When he had homework and stuff to do, lazing around all day, watching Tony Stark work, and playing computer games for hours on end all seemed like pipe dreams. However, now that he could do literally nothing else, his days dragged and his nights dragged longer.

He tried to do whatever he could to help out. He draped a blanket over Tony when he fell asleep in the lab, and over Pepper when she fell asleep doing paperwork on the couch. He found things they were looking for and put them in obvious places, he turned off the oven before Tony burned the food, and once in a while he figured out a problem Tony had left unsolved. Mostly, though, he cleaned.

He could tell that Pepper and Tony were confused by the continued neatness of their home since neither of them ever seemed to clean and they hadn’t hired anyone. Then again, FRIDAY hadn’t told them about any intruders or anything, so they usually just assumed the other had done it. Peter was pretty sure things just disappeared on camera when he picked them up, so he was glad Tony didn’t investigate too closely. The Starks were far too used to weird crap for a self-cleaning house to ping on their radar.

Peter forced himself to chatter cheerfully at Tony and Pepper at all hours of the day, more because it made him feel better than any other reason. Tony wrote him a letter every week, and they slowly got longer. Peter read every one over and over after Tony went to bed, even though they usually made him cry.

_Dear Peter,_

_It’s been 2 months, 1 week, and 3 days since the “Blip,” as the news says. I think the therapy is helping, but never, ever tell Pepper I told you that. I know you’ll keep your promise. I never felt like I deserved you, kid. You <strike>are</strike>were so good. Innocent. I figured I’d ruin you, but I couldn’t stay away. I hope that you’re happy, wherever you are right now. I hope there’s no crime to fight, though._

_Pepper is starting to show. <strike>I’m scared as shit.</strike>_

_Love,_

_Mr. Stark_

Pepper _was_ starting to show, and Peter couldn’t be more excited. A new face! Something else to do! He’d probably be sick of crying before the baby was a week old, but still. Peter was ecstatic for the Stark family.

They were already finding baby books. Pepper did, in fact, pick out a small room next to theirs and make Tony paint it yellow. 

“You know, there are people we could pay to do this. Heck, I could build a bot to do this!” Tony complained good-naturedly.

“Oh, shush, you need something to keep you busy before you get old and fat,” Pepper said.

Tony scoffed. “What do you call all those R&D projects you give me? And fat? This right here is still the most eligible bachelor, I’ll have you know.”

“And here I thought you were a broken, married man.” She smiled.

“Well, you were right about that.”

“You two are disgusting and you deserve each other,” Peter declared from his perch on the ladder. “If your child is anything like either of you I don’t think the world will survive.”

_Hey Pete,_

_I don’t have much time to write, but it’s the end of the week, so…_

_We found out today that the baby’s going to be a girl. I’m going to have a little girl. Rhodey’s coming to celebrate._

_She’d better take after her mom. And you. Her big brother._

_Tony _

Thanksgiving came. It was a bad day. Peter knew it would be, but somehow that didn’t prepare him for the way America as a whole basically shut down while everyone cried. The news reported a three-year-old girl wishing her great grandpa a happy day, gave the weather forecast, then literally cancelled the station for the rest of the day. Stores closed, the streets emptied, and everyone went home to spend time with whatever family they had left.

The Starks invited Rhodey over, but he turned them down in favor of seeing his dad and whatever cousins could be found. No one mentioned his mom, which was how Peter knew what had happened to her.

“You should’ve invited the other Avengers,” said Peter as he sat at the table with Tony and Pepper. “Thanksgiving is the holiday where you see annoying people you disagree with and try not to talk about it. Then you eat a bunch of food and fall asleep to football together and call it a day. That sounds like something you and Captain America would do, actually.”

“You could’ve invited the others, you know,” Pepper said.

“Yes! Thank you!” said Peter. “This woman knows what she’s talking about!”

Tony sighed. “Pep. All we do is fight. We fight together, and then when that’s over we fight each other. I just can’t deal with that, okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

That afternoon Pepper went down to the workshop for a few minutes while Tony was washing dishes. Peter was having fun messing with him by moving everything over an inch or two when he wasn’t looking. Tony’s face was somewhere between confused and annoyed. It made Peter laugh, but he had to stop when Pepper came back. Two sets of eyes were too hard to avoid.

“I found this the other day,” she said, holding up a picture frame. “I think it deserves a place of honor, don’t you?”

Tony froze when he caught sight of it. “Yeah,” he said, with some effort.

“What is it?” said Peter. He walked around Pepper and peered over her shoulder.

It was his fake internship picture. The one where he was holding the certificate upside-down and and they were giving each other bunny ears. “You kept this?” he said. Mr. Stark looked so much happier in that picture. Peter hadn’t seen him smile like that in months.

Pepper swept past them and placed the frame right above the sink, beside an old one with some guy Peter thought was Tony’s dad. “There,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

“Yeah. He fits right in.”

Peter glowed.


	3. A New Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stark family gains a new member.

Morgan Hope Stark was born healthy, red, screaming, and perfect on February 10 in the year after the Blip. Peter, proud older brother and the true child of his Aunt May, was in the room when it happened. To be fair, the only reason he dared be in there was that Tony was also allowed in.

Pepper was sweaty and exhausted, but her smile was bigger than Peter had ever seen when she got to hold her new baby in her arms. Tony matched it as well, making grabby hands for the girl before the doctors swept her away for more tests.

“You did it, Pep,” said Tony once the doctors were gone.

“Yeah…” she smiled sleepily and closed her eyes. Tony gave her such a tender look that Peter blushed and slipped out the door to give them some space. Instead, he followed the doctors with the baby and watched them run a few more tests before they put her in a soft little cradle where she was largely left alone, at least for a minute.

Peter walked over to her, focusing on her little brown eyes and tiny, runny nose.

“Hey, Morgan. You don’t know me, and you can’t see me, but I’m going to be your big brother. My name’s Peter. Peter Parker.” He reached out and brushed her tiny fist with his finger. Little fingers opened up and, to Peter’s surprise, wrapped around his own.

“Would you look at that,” he said, staring at the baby. “Miss Morgan, I do believe we are going to be the best of friends.”

Morgan fell asleep clutching his finger. Peter couldn’t keep the smile off his face the entire time he was beside her. This was the first time he’d been deliberately touched in about seven months, and his whole body filled with warmth at the smallest unknown action from Morgan Stark. He stayed right next to her for hours, even the next day when Tony brought his two girls back home and tucked them into bed.

She was louder than Peter had expected. Any hour of the day or night, a resident of the Stark house was likely to hear an outburst of squalling as Morgan decided she needed food or a change or just some attention _right that very second._ She was always either making a mess of her food, making a mess of her diaper, crying, or sleeping.

Peter loved her to death. (Which, given his current circumstances, might not have been a great thing to say if anyone could actually hear him.)

He saw the toll the new baby took on Tony and Pepper, though. The circles under their eyes grew darker, wrinkles from both smiles and worried frowns got deeper, and they both got altogether a bit snappier.

_I can’t do it, Kid._ Tony wrote him two weeks after bringing Morgan home. _Pepper says I’m not doing my share, but I’m flying blind. I’m doing more than dad would have, for sure, but that’s not a high bar, is it? She put me on Morgan duty all night for a punishment. <strike>Sometimes I just wish--</strike>_

Peter watched Tony struggle to come up with words for what he was feeling. He had improved by leaps and bounds with the help of his trained therapist, but Peter knew that emotions remained very difficult and hard to deal with for the man. And Pepper, though she’d never admit it, didn’t always know what to do with that.

“Hang in there, Mr. Stark,” he said, resolving to read the rest of the letter later. He patted Tony on the shoulder and drifted upstairs to find Pepper just laying still on the bed with an arm thrown over her eyes. She seemed pale, her usually pristine fingernails were short and worn, and her loose pajamas were disheveled. He could barely see a trace of the iron business woman that the world loved to idolize. 

Something had to be done. So Peter did it.

He officially graduated himself from friendly dishwashing and dusting ghost into full-on babysitter mode. (As if this was a hardship; Morgan could see Peter, he was sure of it, and he loved spending time with her. She was going to be brilliant for sure.)

Peter really wanted to write out a game plan, so he waited for Tony to drag himself up to bed before getting down to business with a piece of Tony’s notebook paper and a pen he found lying around.

“Step one,” he said. “Get Mr. and Mrs. Stark more sleep, because they clearly need like a week’s worth.” 

Then he thought for a while, tapping his stolen pen against his chin. “Step two can be keeping the house clean, even though I’m already doing that. Step three… uh… you know what? Maybe I’ll just start with this for now and just generally do what I can when it comes up.” Peter nodded to himself and put the folded paper in his pocket. Considering what Morgan was doing to the Starks, looking after her might well turn into his new full-time job anyway.

Peter himself didn’t really seem to need sleep much at all anymore, so he was well equipped to help out in the first area on his list. As soon as his ears picked up the little whimpers Morgan made before she started to cry, he jumped up so high and so quickly that he found himself on the second floor. “What…?” disoriented and confused, Peter put that weird new discovery aside and ran to Morgan’s room. He set a hand on her belly and her eyes met his steadily.

“Hey, little Miss Morgan,” Peter whispered, even though he knew Tony and Pepper wouldn’t hear him. “What’s got you all worked up now?”

Morgan gurgled a little, and some spit bubbles slid out of her mouth. Then the stink hit, and Peter realized that her diaper was stretched full.

“Oh, Miss,” he said. “I don’t know how to fix that. I see you have more over here, and a little table too. Do you think we should try? I am an honors student, so I should be able to figure out how a diaper works, right?”

Morgan started to breathe heavily, and Peter felt a scream coming on. Before he could second guess himself, he scooped her up into the air and held her over his head. His chest filled with something like elation as she remained firmly in his grip and continued to turn toward his face. “No, no, no, we don’t need to wake up Mommy and Daddy, do we? You’ve got big brother Peter, he’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”

The diaper wound up on backwards, but Peter couldn’t even be bothered to fix it by the time he got the stinky old one into the trash. Squirmy little girls were hard to keep ahold of, especially ones that didn’t want to be changed!

“You,” he told Morgan, “are a world-class menace, did you know that? No wonder your Mommy and Daddy are so sleepy, if they have to deal with you all the time.”

Morgan just sniffed. Peter got her to hold his finger until she fell asleep, and he felt accomplished.

Far from the triumphant morning Peter expected, however, Tony and Pepper actually seemed even more worried about their little girl than usual.

“I hope nothing’s wrong.” Pepper bounced Morgan up and down a little on her hip. “She’s never even been close to sleeping through the night before, and babies don’t usually do it for at least a few months according to most of the stuff I’ve seen.”

Peter bit his lip. “I didn’t mean to worry you! You just looked so tired, I figured no disturbances would help you feel better.”

Tony’s brow creased. “FRIDAY, did Morgan cry last night at all? Did she wake up?”

Peter held his breath. What, exactly, did FRIDAY see on her cameras when he picked Morgan up in the air? Did she just disappear? Did the cameras malfunction?

“I have footage of several times Miss Stark was awake, but she seemed relatively calm. She did not cry loudly for the duration of the night.”

“Hmm,” said Tony.

Peter waited, on edge, but that was all. “You’ve got to give me more to go on than that, Mr. Stark,” he complained.

“Let’s see what happens tomorrow and go from there,” said Pepper. “For all we know this was just a little miracle gift and everything will go back to normal now.”

“Yes! Good idea!” said Peter. He would be sure that Morgan woke up her parents at least once a night until she actually did sleep all the way through. There was no reason to get discovered now, after all. It’d probably just make Tony work himself to death, and Pepper would be sad and stressed, and then Morgan would be an orphan with only a ghostly big brother to watch her.

So Peter helped. Quietly and inconsistently, but the dark circles under Pepper’s eyes started to fade, and Tony’s steps regained just a little of their old spring.

He fingered the folded paper in his pocket and smiled.

Peter’s days took on a new rhythm, and Morgan Stark was conducting it. He still followed Tony to the workshop, of course, and watching Pepper win at business was fascinating, but Morgan owned his nights and half his days. Whenever they were alone he was bouncing her, talking to her, handing her things, or just plain enjoying the fact that someone knew he was there. He also experimented a little, and found himself getting better and better at moving through solid things like walls and doors. Peter still wasn’t sure whether the act made him want to pass out from sheer nerd heaven or from pure terror.

Peter thought often about leaving a note or something to show Tony that he was still around. Some days it seemed like the only option. But other days Peter saw the way that Tony worked frantically in his lab to find a solution, any solution, that would bring Peter back again (the number of times his name specifically was brought up both thrilled and terrified him). He knew that if he told Tony, the man would never rest until he found a solution or died trying.

Peter didn’t want that for Morgan and Pepper, so he remained silent.

One day Morgan was playing on a big blanket in the living room while Pepper was doing something on her computer on the couch. The news was playing at a low volume on TV, and Peter half watched it while he talked to his baby sister.

“Do you like that stuffed monkey, little Missy? I bet you can’t grab it.”

Morgan’s fist waved haphazardly through the air. “Buh buh baaa,” she said. Flat on her back, she couldn’t reach it.

“Nope!” said Peter. “Well that’s too bad for you because I physically can’t move anything while Mommy can see me. Sounds like yourre stuck, doesn’t it?”

“Puh buh mmmmah!” Morgan said. Her flailing hand grew closer to the monkey, reaching wildly before she managed to flip onto her belly with a surprised little huff.

“You did it!” Peter jumped up in delight. “Mrs. Stark, did you see? She turned over all by herself!” Peter crouched back down and patted Morgan on the back. “You are just the awesomest little girl, huh? Look at you, all smug with your monkey. Look, Pep… I mean Mrs. Stark… see?”

Peter looked up at her, only to find Pepper still absorbed in her work. His smile faded as Pepper blinked slowly and pinched the bridge of her nose, then turned up the TV volume just a little. She hadn’t seen Morgan’s new skill.

“--The police have been running ragged to slow down the pervasive looting of abandoned homes and buildings. With many of the supers either gone, out of commission, or otherwise occupied, they have received little help in keeping the peace.”

The words cast a dart right though Peter’s chest. His city needed him, and what was he doing? Rocking a baby in the wee hours of the morning and washing mugs. He hadn’t seen much of the news recently, but the pictures of the city couldn’t possibly be real right? All those boarded up buildings and broken windows and… It couldn’t be that bad, could it?

Peter stood. “I have to go,” he said to no one, and walked out of the room.


	4. Spiderman Returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter visits the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! There is a character who gets up to some seriously creepy rapey-type stuff in this chapter. There's nothing explicitly talked about about but it is definitely implied.

Peter wasn’t sure about the legality of non-consensual hitchhiking, especially since he was a minor and all, but he really had no other way to get to Queens. It wasn’t as if he could pay for a subway ticket. Either way, he stopped worrying about it as the car he was sitting on drew farther and farther into his home city.

It was bad.

Peter rode through the streets, watching the pigeons pick at garbage. All the colors that Peter had become accustomed to--green leaves and grass, sparkling water, blue skies, Pepper’s red porch swing--faded away into the drab grays and black streets of what was left of his city. The sky, the buildings, the puddles on the ground… even the people were dull and gray as they shuffled about their business. Peter couldn’t see any of the bright advertisements or colorful graffiti that he remembered.

He jumped off the car at a stoplight and moved into the ever-present stream of people on the sidewalk. The pedestrians automatically swerved around him without hesitation. Peter wasn’t sure whether that was part of the weird ghostly magic thing he had going on, or if the people were too downtrodden to even care.

Movement caught the corner of his eye. Peter turned down the opening to an alleyway just as a young girl with scraggly brown hair ducked behind a dumpster.

“Hey!” he shouted on instinct. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t hear him. Peter walked around to see her standing on the very tips of her toes, trying to nudge the lid up off the top. She tottered and pushed, and Peter winced when he saw the bin tilt just a little too far. With a loud, reverberating _Clang!_ and a high pitched shriek, the girl tumbled down and tangled herself in the garbage on the ground. Peter tried to leap forward and catch her, but he could’ve sworn she fell right through his fingers.

He wanted to help her to her feet and tell her everything was alright. Unfortunately, that wasn’t really an option. Even worse, he wasn’t the only one who’d heard her.

“What’s going on here?” called a tall, thin man. Peter’s skin prickled unpleasantly as soon as he caught sight of him. He scowled when the man caught sight of the grimy child.

The man’s tone had changed completely when he spoke again. “Ah, a lovely little girl. Are you alright?” 

“I--I’m hungry,” she stuttered. A tear rolled down her smudged cheek and she started snuffling noisily. “Please, do you have any food?”

The man smiled far wider than a normal person. “Why, I have just the thing for a little princess like yourself. Why don’t you come with me?” His eyes raked over her critically and he held out a hand. To Peter’s growing horror, the girl took it with little hesitation and followed him down the street. 

“Hey, no! Don’t go with him, what are you doing?” called Peter desperately. He tried to stand between them, to pull their hands apart, to sound an alarm. Nothing worked.

“You can come to my house and do a little work for your food, okay?” said the man. “After all, it’s only a fair deal. I’ll help you out, and you can help me. I know some really fun games to play, too.” He patted her just a little too far down to be called her back.

Peter gagged, frantically looking around for help. He knew there was a police station nearby, if he could just alert someone that this girl was clearly about to be taken somewhere awful, maybe they could help. He turned so that he could face the girl and her potential kidnapper and ran backwards toward the station, bursting through the door out of breath and trying to shout.

“Please help! There’s a man and he’s taken a girl--they’re going to get away!”

One or two people looked up at the door with confusion, and a confused officer walked over to close it. “Must have been the wind,” she said with a shrug.

“No, please!” Peter begged. He raced around the room looking for writing utensils or any way he could possibly tell them his message. Every time he found a possibility, someone’s eyes turned his way and it fell through his fingers. The constant clattering and rustling of items drew even more bewildered stares, which only made his task impossible.

Peter gave up on the police and ran back towards the place where he had last seen the man and the little girl. He phased through the wall and wished he had some ghostly web shooters so that he could get back even faster (and maybe tie up that super creepy dude, too). He caught sight of the pair a few blocks down, and without a second to spare jumped into the car and landed right in the girl’s lap. She was sitting stiffly as Peter rolled off of her, and the man seemed to have shed his kindly persona.

“You may call me ‘Sir’,” he was saying. “You will share a room with another little girl and you will have food every day. You will pay me back by playing games with me and listening to what I tell you. Is that clear, Princess?”

“My name--”

“I don’t want to hear it,” he said sharply. “You look like a Princess to me, and that is what I’ll call you. Now, are the rules clear?”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Peter wanted desperately to grab the girl, jump out the window, and run for their lives, but since he was physically incapable of doing that he had to settle for holding her hand and gaining whatever information he could. They pulled up to a predictably well-off apartment in Manhattan and Peter memorized the address for future reference.

The man opened a door and shoved the little girl in, where another child was already sitting on the bed. She was wearing perfectly adequate clothing and seemed to be on the thin side of healthy, probably a year or two older than the girl Peter was following. Her face was haggard and Peter thought her dark brown complexion seemed paler than it should be. There were noticeable bags under her wide eyes.

“Your new room,” said the man, and closed the door with a click. The lock turned a second later, and Peter had to forcibly remind himself that he could get around that problem. He wanted to collect clues from wherever the man was disappearing to, but something about the two little girls alone in that room kept him there instead.

“Hello,” said the weary girl quietly. “My name is Emmanuella, or just Ella, but Sir calls me Angel.”

“I’m Cat, and I’m hungry.”

Ella nodded wisely. “That’s how I got here too,” she said. “You’d be better off starving on the streets, but there’s no escape now. I’ve tried.”

“What do you mean?” Cat picked at her dirt-filled fingernails and looked down. Choppy bangs covered her face.

Ella grabbed her hand. “He’s horrible. He makes me… he…” she shuddered. 

Peter couldn’t take it anymore. Fighting the urge to vomit at what he was sure she was trying to say, he fazed out of the room and sprinted away, down the stairs, out to the road, and latched onto the first car he could see. It took hours to hitchhike all the way back to the cabin, and Peter had to walk a fair bit of the final stretch. By the time he made it home he was exhausted. His head was spinning, he might throw up if that was possible, and he couldn’t blink away the sight of little Ella and Cat sitting together on one big bed.

It was late. In the half light of the quiet cabin, Peter could almost pretend that he hadn’t just witnessed a man kidnap a little girl so he could ruin her life. Tony was dozing while sitting up on the couch and Peter knew Pepper would be off at some meeting or other. He curled around Tony like a child going to his dad after a nightmare, and tried to draw comfort from his warmth.

Tony didn’t cuddle him back, but Peter just curled closer and sobbed into his shirt, since no one was going to hear it anyway.

“I couldn’t help her,” he said. “I was right there, and she walked off with him and now her life is ruined and I couldn’t do anything. Do you hear me? There names are Cat and Ella and they might die there.”

Tony didn’t move.

A new feeling welled up in Peter, one he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge in a long time. 

“I’m sick of this!” he yelled, pounding against the couch. “You sit there and you live and you don’t see me and I’m done! Why am I even here? You could ignore me or yell at me or whatever you want, but I can’t take this for another day! _Please!”_

Nothing changed. Peter might as well have been a fruit fly or a painting on the wall.

“Please,” he whispered, collapsing again against Tony. He shut his eyes and fisted his hands into Tony’s shirt, cheek against his heart. The steady beating calmed him a little, and Peter let himself fall apart.

<strike>\----------------------------------</strike>

For the next few days, Peter couldn’t get those little girls out of his head. Cat couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, and Ella only a little older than that. It was so wrong. How could people let things like this happen? How could anyone do it?

On the third day, Peter couldn’t take it anymore. He kissed Morgan on the forehead and found himself a ride headed for the city, the address he was looking for burned clearly into his brain.

Peter walked apprehensively up the steps to the expensive apartment and braced himself for what he might find there before taking a deep breath and phasing through the door. 

Everything was quiet.

Peter went first to the room that the two girls were staying in. His footsteps didn’t make a sound, even to his own ears, and he hesitated at their door. Was it appropriate to spy on the two children? But there was no other way to find out if they were alright, he reasoned, and he would obviously leave immediately if one of them was changing or something. Before he could talk himself out of it, he stuck his head through the door.

The girls were asleep, arms wrapped around each other and blankets askew, with Ella’s tightly coiled braids intermingling with Cat’s scraggly locks. It would have been adorable except for the dried tear tracks that streaked Cat’s face and the occasional drop of blood on the sheets. Peter’s stomach sank when he realized that he might be too late. He couldn’t handle it last time, and now Cat would never be the same.

Peter would know.

He forced his thoughts away from his own past though, because there might still be something he could do for Cat and Ella. He retreated from the room and began to wander the apartment. There was no sign that the man was home, for which Peter was grateful. He didn’t think he could handle seeing that jerkwad’s face at the moment. He found a pretty normal kitchen and living room before he opened the door to what was obviously an office. Jackpot.

Peter rifled through the desk. The man’s name was Warner B. McHenry Jr., which was disgustingly posh and also the stupidest name Peter had ever heard, if he did say so himself. He didn’t find much other evidence.

“There’s got to be something,” he said, tapping a hand against McHenry’s filing cabinet. He pulled it open again and frowed. If the drawer was really this small, there would be a good few inches of extra space behind it…

He pulled it all the way out, careful not to let it clang loudly on the floor. Behind the fake divider was exactly what he was looking for: paper files and contracts that were too dangerous to leave floating somewhere digital. It was ironic, Peter thought, that files in a cabinet used to be the least safe place for information. Now it was the only place people couldn’t hack remotely.

Peter thumbed through the documents, pausing on pictures, dates, and monetary transactions. This was all he could have hoped to find, but now he didn’t know what to do with his discovery. No one could see or hear him except for one mysterious toddler who also couldn’t make herself understood. However, Peter realized, he had managed, once upon a time, to put a sticky note in his pocket and continue carrying it when people could have seen it. Mabe if he hid it in his hoodie and dropped it at the police station, he could get someone here.

Handling the papers as if they might bite him, Peter took the entire file folder and hid it under his hoodie. He turned to leave, heartened with his success, until he attempted to step through the door. His body made it through fine, but the file hit the door and fell to the floor, its contents spilling all over. Peter groaned. He shuffled the pile of papers back into something neat, if not organized, and stared at it for a while. 

So he couldn’t transport solid things through places they couldn’t normally go, like the door. He almost certainly wouldn’t be noticed carrying it though, once he had it under his hoodie, as he’d noticed with the sticky note in his pocket. Peter really needed to get a better grip on his abilities, and he made a mental note to experiment further when he got back home.

But the girls came first. 

Peter made up his mind to simply wait until McHenry came back and opened the door. It took hours, and Peter nearly made himself sick when he began reading the files out of sheer boredom. He had to resolve not to let his mind spiral too far, and resorted to spinning around and around in the desk chair instead until his sensitive ears picked up the sound of the front doorknob turning.

“Yes! Get in here, Junior, I need you to open the stupid door for me,” Peter called. There was no answer. To his disappointment, the footsteps didn’t turn toward the office just yet, though Peter could see some important-looking papers due the next day on the desk. To his mounting horror, Peter began to make out the voices of McHenry talking to the two girls in the other room.

He didn’t know what, if anything, he could do, but Peter abandoned the file and ran toward the girls’ room. 

“No,” Ella said, standing in front of the smaller girl, hands thrust out as if blocking the sight of Cat would shield her from McHenry’s intentions. “Cat had her turn yesterday. I want to have fun today instead, it’s my turn!”

McHenry’s face twisted into something terribly ugly for an objectively handsome dude. Cat cowered lower behind Ella, even as she whispered a tiny “Don’t” and tugged lightly on one of Ella’s braids.

Peter searched frantically for something he could do. Everyone’s attention was fixed on each other, and in the corner he found that he could pick up a table lamp that was on the dusty dresser and had yet to be turned on. Without wasting a second he aimed and threw it right at McHenry’s head. 

“I think a little illumination would do you good, dirtbag!” he said.

McHenry couldn’t respond if he’d heard, on account of being knocked out on the floor. Giddy with his success, Peter turned to see two sets of wide eyes locked onto his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if anyone out there somehow has the name of Warner McHenry... I named him after that dude in Legally Blonde and I think the last name is from the Gallagher Girl books... :)


	5. They See Dead Peter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peter is basically Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh... hi! A wild update appeared! 
> 
> (PS, an update of the update happened a few hours later, since I wrote half the original update in the wee hours of the morning.)

“Who are you?” said Cat.

“Stay back!” said Ella at the same time. Then, “What are you?”

“You can see me?” Peter gaped at the children. They met his gaze steadily, and he let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “I… you can see me!”

“Yes.” Ella folded her arms imperiously. 

I… I… I’m Peter,” he said, floored and wrong footed. He hadn’t thought this far ahead.

“Are you a ghost?” Cat stepped slightly out from behind Ella. “You look like a ghost.”

Peter nodded quickly. “Yeah, I’m like a friendly ghost. I almost got Blipped, but I… I tried to escape and I fought too hard and this happened instead. You’re the first people to see me since.”

“Prove it,” said Ella, eyes narrowed. Peter shrugged and phased out through the closed bedroom door, and then back in.

“Good enough proof for you?” he said smugly to their amazed faces. 

Cat just shook her head and smiled, before running over to give him a hug. Peter might have choked up a little when it actually worked, and he was able to put his arms around someone other than a baby for the first time in over a year. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Are you going to help us now?”

“Of course I will,” Peter whispered back. “If you help me open the door to that guy’s office, he has some files that we can take to the police. I saw him take you, but I couldn’t tell anyone because they couldn’t see me.”

To his surprise, Ella and Cat believed his story at face value and Ella screwed up the courage to step further into the house and help Peter grab the files. Luckily, the door wasn’t locked. Peter didn’t want to get any closer to the scumbag than he already was.

The next problem was where to take the girls for the short term. Peter didn’t trust anyone in the building, and they didn’t have any money for a train or bus to get to the station. None of them had a phone, and pay phones were a thing of the past even if one of them did have some loose change. Still, not wanting to show weakness in the face of two children depending on him, Peter confidently directed them all to walk in a random direction, hoping to find some kind of public building.

They walked for five blocks before they found a bank, during which the girls got to introduce themselves properly. 

“I like horses,” Cat said with little girl confidence. “Mommy used to say I could have one when we finally moved to the country.”

“I used to have a big brother,” Ella admitted. “We were going to open a pet store.”

Cat’s head whipped around so fast Peter thought she might get whiplash. “_you_ like animals _too?”_

Peter was a little left out of the following flurry of excitement at this discovery, but Cat’s hand found its way into his while they talked, so he considered it a win.

When they made it to the bank, he paused and interrupted their conversation.

“Okay, these people will help us call the police. No one else can see me, so just tell them you escaped from a scary man who made you do things you didn’t like. If you talk about me they might think you’re crazy.” Peter told the girls. 

“But we’re not,” Ella protested.

Peter smiled. “Yes, but not a lot of people believe in ghosts, so it’s best to keep that part quiet. Ella, I need you to tell the person at the desk that you need the police and don’t have a way to call them. Cat, you take this folder and give it to the first officer you see, okay? You can show the bank person if you have to, but make sure the police get all the papers.” He looked from one wide-eyed face to the other, noting the nerves that both of them were clearly trying to hide.

“Don’t worry,” he told them, though he didn’t know how he could help them in any tangible way. “I’ll be next to you the whole time.”

To Peter’s surprise, it was Cat who squared her shoulders first and pulled Ella into the building like a girl on a mission. He jogged to catch up with her, and set a hand on her shoulder as they talked to the teller.

Police arrived within half an hour.

Peter almost lost track of Ella and Cat as the police took the file and interviewed them, calling their base and sending more officers to the cursed apartment where Warner McHenry was hopefully still lying unconscious. Still, he managed to slide into the back of the police car where they were getting a ride to the station, and he even snagged a pen out of the clipboard on the front seat.

“They’re going to take care of you now,” he whispered, glancing tellingly at the officer driving the car.

Cat nodded. “Will you stay?” Ella said.

“As long as I can,” Peter promised. “But I have to keep watching over my own family too. Can you read?” 

Cat shook her head, but Ella nodded. “Just a little,” she admitted.

“Good.” Peter scrawled his email address on her arm with the pen. “Copy that onto some paper as soon as you get the chance, and make sure you both have one. That’s my email, and I check it at least every few days. Please let me know or have someone send something for you if you’re in trouble, okay?”

Both girls nodded. Ella held her arm carefully, as though Peter’s email was the most precious gift she’d been given in years.

Peter didn’t want to know if that was true or not.

He stayed with the girls all night at the station, and if they got a few weird looks for talking with someone who wasn’t there, Peter hoped the officers just chalked it up to an imaginary friend or shared trauma or both.

Eventually the girls were sent off to a nearby shelter for kids in need, which was coincidentally set up by Stark Industries. Peter made a mental note to do something really nice for Pepper as he carefully extracted himself from the girls with promises to visit.

“I’ll be back, you’ll see,” Peter grinned at a teary Cat. “You two are the only ones who can see me besides my baby sister, and she’s not exactly old enough for conversations yet.”

“You should bring her for a visit,” Ella said. 

Peter laughed. “We’ll see, okay?”

“Okay.”

It was a wrench to leave them, but Peter hadn’t seen Morgan in over a day and he might have been a little clingy, but he wasn’t about to leave her and her parents alone without supervision for much longer. Plus he really wanted to test what he could and couldn’t do. Curiosity had seemed kind of pointless before, but now Peter knew he could get his act together and go back to making a difference for his city. It was making him excited in a way he hadn’t been for months.

Buoyed by his success at getting the girls to safety, Peter bounced through the cabin’s front door with a grin.

“I’m hooome!” 

Morgan shrieked happily from the living room, much to Peter’s amusement and Tony’s confusion.

<strike>\----------------------------------</strike>

Peter could interact with physical objects as long as no one was watching (not counting Morgan, who was an exception to everything). He could phase through solid walls and doors, but not with anything that wasn’t a part of his ghostly self. He also found that if he concentrated hard enough on picturing a place in his head, he could teleport there, which was so cool it almost made up for his appalling lack of spider-powers. And he could be seen and touched by three random little girls in the city of New York.

To be totally honest, his first experience with the teleportation thing happened completely on accident. A few days after his encounter with Cat and Ella he was sitting by Morgan’s crib in the middle of the night describing them for her. One second he was picturing them clearly in his head, wishing he could visit them more easily, and the next he was sitting in their room at the Stark Children’s Home in the middle of the city.

They were both asleep, of course, so he freaked out as silently as possible. He tiptoed around the room, noting the six other girls also sleeping there, and phased through the wall. Apparently he’d been on the second floor, but his massless form just dropped to the ground as soon as he stepped out. Curious, Peter ducked back inside and found the staircase to try again. But no matter how many times he did it, he couldn’t manage to actually float in midair. What a ripoff.

That question answered, Peter turned his mind towards getting home.

“This is so stupid,” he muttered. “What did I do to get here?”

He pictured Morgan’s bedroom clearly in his head, and had a sudden flashback to the Magic books he’d read as a kid. “I wish I could go there,” he said aloud, feeling like an idiot but unable to rule out the possibility. 

When he opened his eyes, Morgan was staring at him in confusion.

“Me too,” he told her.

With a (sort of) proven method of travel, Peter could now visit Cat and Ella much more regularly than he’d hoped. They quickly accepted his ability to show up at random times, though he was careful to avoid appearing in a bedroom belonging to a hoard of preteen girls. There wasn’t anyone who could see him and get the wrong idea, but he would have felt like a horrible creeper doing it.

“How did you see me?” he asked Ella and Cat one day a few weeks later. The girls were sitting on a bed in the Children’s Home as Ella braided tight, even little rows in Cat’s hair.

Cat shrugged. 

“I saw… him… get hit by the lamp, so I knew someone must be there,” said Ella. “And then you were!”

Peter sat back slowly. “You just believed I was there?”

“Pretty much,” she said. “Done! Check it out, Cat!”

Cat jumped off the bed and went to admire her new cornrows in the bathroom mirror. “Woah! Look at me, Peter!”

“You look beautiful, Darling,” said Peter in his best British accent, and held out a hand. “May I have this dance?”

“Oh, I suppose,” she replied in a positively dreadful accent of her own. Giggling madly, she took his hand and he twirled her around, smiling and trying not to think of the day May taught him to dance. 

“My turn, my turn!” said Ella, and then Peter was dancing with two little hellions at the same time and doing his best not to trip over his own feet. He didn’t know ghosts could get winded, but it was positively unfair because he really didn’t even have lungs. 

(Worth it, though, because the girls had some of the biggest smiles he’d ever seen on their faces, and Peter still tingled pleasantly every time he managed to touch or be touched by a real, living person.)

When Peter got home, he went straight to Tony.

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” he said. Tony was playing with something on his holotable. The music was quiet, a habit Tony had begun because Peter’s ears were sensitive. _ He must be thinking about me again,_ Peter thought, and swallowed.

“I know you can’t see or hear me, but I can think of a lot of ways to make you believe I’m here. The real question is, should I do it?”

Tony sighed, and Peter drifted a little closer. “We miss each other. Even though I can see you every day and know how you’re doing, I miss talking to you.” Peter laugh sounded broken, even to his own ears. “I really, really do.”

“But if I tell you that I’m here, but stuck as a ghost, what will you do?” Peter watched as Tony spun a digital gear around and around. “I’ve known you long enough to take a pretty decent guess, if I do say so myself. You never give up. If you knew I was here you’d insist I’m floating around to everyone else like a crazy person, and when they didn’t believe you you’d come lock yourself down here and try to invent a way for me to come back to you.

“You’d never give up on me,” Peter whispered. “But you would hurt your family because of it. Morgan would never see you and Pepper would get mad and I’m not going to be the one that does that to your family.”

He reached out and rested a hand on Tony’s shoulder. Tony didn’t react.

Peter curled up around him, smelling his smell and missing his warmth, and his breath hitched. 

_You could change this. Leave a message on his computer, write him a note, hack into FRIDAY and see what the heck she’s been recording while you’ve been here… Tony would hug you back, then. _

Peter wavered for a second, chest heaving as he suppressed his sobs. For just one shining second, he let himself seriously consider the possibility of having Tony back. He could have regular conversations, Tony would laugh at his stupid puns, Peter could _touch_ people again. 

“Boss, Mrs. Stark is requiring you to come upstairs and say goodnight to your daughter.” FRIDAY’s voice broke the silence and shattered the moment. Peter pulled back before he could be thrown off Tony’s lap. 

“On it.” Tony stood, popped his back with a groan, and shuffled out the door. 

Peter took a step forward, hand outstretched and a wordless plea on his lips. He caught himself as the door slid shut and the lights plunged him into echoing darkness.


End file.
